The AI sell-off compared to well-known stock market crashes
The recent AI sell-off brought a lot of fearmongering headlines. Put next to past stock market crashes, it's only a mild correction for the S&P 500, 6% below its record. Tech fell harder, with the Nasdaq down 11% and chip stocks down 36%, as much as they fell during Covid (35%). We'll be tracking the sell-off here with daily data updates.
The S&P 500 at the close on 6 Nov 2026
How far the S&P 500 fell below a record close
Each line runs from a record high to the low that followed. Eight of the 16 falls past 15% since 1928 are shown.
Four in five S&P 500 falls of 6% never reached −20%
All 56 falls of 6% or more from a record since 1928, one dot each at its lowest point.
Mild for the S&P 500, a crash for chip stocks
How far each index is below its record now, against the lows of its own best-known past falls. US chip stocks (the PHLX Semiconductor index) are 36% down from their 22 Jun record, as deep as their Covid fall.
After dot-com, the S&P 500 took 7 years to recover, chip stocks 18
Years from each index's record close to its first close back at or above it. Prices only: with dividends reinvested, most recoveries were shorter. These are worst cases, for someone who bought at the record.
About the data
The S&P 500 is the price index, without dividends, from daily closes on Yahoo Finance. Before March 1957 the series is its predecessor, the S&P 90.
A fall runs from a record close to the next record, so the 2011 fall sits inside the 2007 to 2013 one. Its depth is the lowest close before the next record.
"AI sell-off" is our name for the slide since the 6 October 2026 record.
The S&P 500 is not the same index it was in 1929 or 1973: technology is now about a third of it, far more than then, so a tech-led sell-off moves it more than it would have.
"Still below 2000 high" means the Nasdaq and chip stocks had not got back to their 2000 records by 2008, so 2008 is part of their dot-com fall, not a fall of its own.
How we collect and check the data behind Company Tracker: About .